While Amazon’s Alexa allowed you to choose a couple, and as my children discovered you can say “Potato Poophole” to mimic OK Google, there really hasn’t been a good method to change what the hotword is to wake up your device.

There still isn’t, but at least now there’s a way with Project Alias. PA allows you to define your own keyword by building something that looks like a parasitic brain slug and sits on top of your smart speaker.

The brain slug then listens for whatever you want – Yo Bananas, Wassup Speaker of Mine, Yadda Yadda Yadda Go!, etc. It quietly speaks “OK Google,” or “Hey Alexa,” through the brain slug’s butt and then passes through any audio you want.

You’ll need to build it yourself, instructions are on the Project Alias page and include downloads for 3d printing the shell. Alternately you could pay your neighbor to build it, but whatever gets it done.

It’s a remarkably inelegant solution to something people have been asking Google and Amazon for since the introduction of these smart speakers. But it works I guess.

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